GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
2 CHRONICLES 25:1-6
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25:1 Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddin of Jerusalem. 2 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, yet not with his whole heart. 3 As soon as the royal power was firmly in his hand he put to death the servants who had struck down his father the king. 4 But he did not put their children to death, because of what is written in the law, in the book of Moses, where the LORD commanded, “Fathers must not die on account of their sons, and sons must not die on account of their fathers, but each person will die for his own sins.” 5 Then Amaziah assembled Judah, and set them by the father’s houses under commanders of thousands and of hundreds for all Judah and Benjamin. He mustered those who were twenty years old and upward, and he found that they numbered 300,000 veteran soldiers fit for war, able to handle spear and shield. 6 Also, he hired 100,000 mighty warriors from Israel for one hundred talents of silver.
Amaziah’s record is mixed, but he did many things that were good and right in God’s eyes. He began by showing the nation that he had no hand in the murder of his father, by killing the men who killed Joash, in the same way that David killed the man who claimed to have killed King Saul (2 Samuel 1:15). A king who does not execute his predecessor’s assassins makes himself a collaborator in the assassination, and makes himself vulnerable to the same fate. So while Amaziah began by showing his strength, he also began his reign with compassion, but sparing the sons of the men who killed Joash his father. Amaziah cited Deuteronomy 24:16 for this, and our prophet quotes the passage in verse 4.
Not mentioned here is a typical verse given with many of the kings. 2 Kings 14:4 states that Amaziah did not remove the high places, and that “the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.” This was probably incense offered to the Lord, but not in keeping with the law of Moses. The people did not go to the temple but went up to the Hill of Corruption to offer sacrifices there.
Amaziah also assessed the strength of the army following the defeat by Aram (24:24). His plan was to attack Edom (2 Kings 14:7). He was able to muster a large number of men with experience (“veterans”), but compared with the armies mustered by his ancestors, 300,000 was a smaller army. He paid for Israelite mercenaries to supplement his force, paying a hundred talents of silver for them. The talent (kikkar) in the pre-Babylonian years of the Old Testament was probably the Akkadian talent, which was 60 minas; each mina was 60 shekels. A talent was really the amount of weight that one man could carry a long distance, or a little over 65 pounds. This comes to about 30 shekels or “thirty pieces of silver” for each mercenary. This was the slave price used in Exodus 21:32, and of course it was the price Judas received to betray Jesus (Matthew 26:15).
Politically, a king has to show his strength in some way. Amaziah had done this. Spiritually, he needs to show his devotion to the Lord. He had shown this by keeping the Law of Moses, although he fell short of the ideal by allowing the high places to be used for worship. Each king, like each parent, each kind of leader, and each and every Christian in general, must do whatever they can to serve the Lord. “Only this– let each man do his best” (Henry IV Part 1, V:2).
This is the doctrine of good works. We are justified, declared not guilty of our sins, by faith in Jesus apart from good works (Romans 4:2-3; Ephesians 2:8-9). But this faith is not alone, like a dead thing or a pot that sits on a window sill, empty but present. But faith causes the expression of faith, and good works naturally follow after faith, like the flowers that grow from the watered soil in the clay pot on the window sill. Just after Martin Luther was called by the Father to his eternal home, the Council of Trent launched an attack on the Lutherans by saying that “trust is preached among them which is removed from all godliness,” but this has never been the case. As Professor Gerhard says: “Removing works from the act of justification is not the same as removing works from the justified and utterly banishing them from the bounds of the church” (On Good Works §1). We want to praise God and do things that please him because we are thanking him for his providence, for his Son our Savior, and for his Holy Spirit our guide. And therefore it is completely proper to quote Hotspur once again in the very best sense of the speech: “Only this– let each one do their best.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 2 Chronicles 25:1-6 “Only this– let each man do his best”